Germans snap up Trump wigs for carnival

3 Min Read

NEUSTADT BEI COBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Bavarian maker of Donald Trump-style wigs said on Wednesday her factory has been overwhelmed by demand for the U.S. president’s blonde coiffure from Germans preparing for carnival celebrations this week.

A papier mache caricature depicting U.S. President Donald Trump is pictured during preparations for the upcoming Rose Monday carnival parade in Cologne, Germany, February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

The six-day long carnival takes place in Catholic parts of Germany and revelers in the Rhineland cities of Cologne, Duesseldorf and Mainz traditionally poke fun at politicians. One of the main targets of this year’s jokes is Trump.

“We have no more (wigs) in stock because as soon as they come out of production they are ripped out of my hands,” Susanne Mueller, managing director of Festartikel Mueller, a company that makes party costumes, in the Bavarian town of Neustadt bei Coburg, told Reuters Television.

Three of its 35 employees are permanently employed making the special wigs.

Mueller said the Trump wigs are complicated.

“It requires specialized skills, but luckily my wig makers can manage. I can’t just get in anybody to increase production. I have to limit myself to my existing workers to guarantee quality,” she said.

She told a local radio station that Trump’s hair was unique.

“One side has to be sewn with short hair, the other with long hair. Then the long hairs are then brushed, pulled over the bald patch and lastly fixed in place with a hot-melt gun,” Mueller told Antenne Bayern radio.

Carnival is called the “fifth season” in the Rhineland. Revelers pack the streets to party, consume large amounts of alcohol and sing and dance.

This year there is one of Trump portrayed as new boy in a school, joining Russian President Vladimir Putin. The alphabet is written on the blackboard and Trump’s first-day-at-school present is a special bag with the nuclear codes. Another shows him as an elephant in a shop full of broken china.

There is also one of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces election in September, as a ladybird on her back with her Social Democrat (SPD) rival Martin Schulz fluttering above her as a butterfly. He has surprised pundits with a strong showing in opinion polls.

Carnival kicks off on Thursday with Weiberfastnacht or “women’s carnival,” traditionally the day when women, many in clown costumes and wigs, take over town halls. They symbolically “castrate” men by cutting off their ties.